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The Upper Jurassic Oxfordian Play on the NCS: The Role of Geophysics in
Characterizing a Challenging Sandstone Reservoir

Conference Paper · June 2018

DOI: 10.3997/2214-4609.201800845

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Tu L 14
The Upper Jurassic Oxfordian Play on the NCS: The Role
of Geophysics in Characterizing a Challenging Sandstone
Reservoir
J. Thiebaud* (Wintershall Norge), A. Bosold (Wintershall Norge), B. Köhrer (Wintershall
Norge)

Summary
Exploration and development of Jurassic sandstones on the southern and central NCS mainly focused on the Brent
reservoir interval. The Skarfjell discovery to the west of the Vega field refocused exploration in the area to the
Upper Jurassic strata. We present a case study from the Vega area of Q35 where recent oil discoveries have been
made in so far underexplored Upper Jurassic deep marine turbidite sandstones. Oxfordian sandstones penetrated
by the exploration wells were found to be strongly cemented and tight, but significant sand thicknesses and turbidite
channel fairways have been mapped on seismic. In a rather difficult seismic imaging context and in the structurally
complex Northern North See geology including tilted and inverted fault blocks, seismic inversion was successfully
used as sandstone facies discriminator. A new play concept was established for Upper Jurassic Oxfordian
reservoirs. A refined integrated seismic to geomodelling approach using the new exploration wells as constraint
allowed to characterize reservoir quantity and quality for development evaluation purposes.

80th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2018

11-14 June 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark
Introduction

Early exploration efforts in the Q35 area of the Northern North Sea on the NCS mainly focused on the
Middle Jurassic Brent reservoir on tilted Jurassic fault blocks. Several discoveries were made and are
producing oil and gas-condensate in Vega (North, Central, South), Fram and Gjøa. More recently oil
and gas-condensate has also been discovered in the Upper Jurassic Intra-Heather sandstones of
Oxfordian age (e.g. Astero Field, Skarfjell). The presence of the Upper Jurassic sandstones was well
known already before that. They had been encountered with variable thickness and quality in most of
the wells targeting the Brent reservoir. Nevertheless, only the Skarfjell discovery (Koch et al, 2017) to
the west of the Vega field on the Ryggsteinen ridge triggered exploration in the area on this
underexplored Upper Jurassic play (Figure 1). Regional mapping and the development of an
integrated depositional concept to improve the understanding of the deep marine turbidite fairways
and especially its westwards continuation was carried out. As a result, 4 exploration wells were drilled
during 2016/2017. All of them found the predicted Oxfordian reservoir, 3 were discoveries (Syrah,
Robbins, Orion) and 1 was a dry hole (Vikafjell). The Orion discovery - with light oil found within
Early-Middle Oxfordian slope channel turbidite sandstones - is the focus of this study.

Although the preliminary rock physics analysis of the Oxfordian sand in the exploration wells showed
little hope to discriminate fluid or lithology using geophysical methods, a careful approach from
seismic conditioning to prestack inversion showed promising results to map the sand distribution in
the exploration phase and even characterize the reservoir in the appraisal phase.

Figure 1 Upper Jurassic stratigraphy of the Northern North Sea.

Use of inversion as lithology discrimination for exploration

To identify the overall exploration potential of the Upper Jurassic in the area, the Oxfordian sand
stringers penetrated by several wells were studied. The highly variable nature of the Upper Jurassic
sandstones in terms of thickness and quality over relatively short distances represent the main

80th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2018

11-14 June 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark
challenge for their mapping and geophysical characterization. The sandstones are generally of
moderate to low quality. Highly carbonate cemented layers are present within different levels of the
stacked turbiditic succession. The rock physics analysis showed that these cemented sand portions,
producing very high AI (Acoustic Impedance) values, are often driving the seismic response (Figure
2). The AI contrast and hence seismic reflectivity at the top and base of the sandstones is varying
laterally and mapping becomes very challenging especially at reservoir thicknesses below 40-50m.
Hence high amplitude anomalies seen on seismic where mostly rather tight probably carbonate
cemented sandstone stringers, whereas the better quality, more porous sandstone portion was very
difficult to discriminate from the shale trend, except for possible sweet spots of high porosity
sandstone combined with sufficient hydrocarbon fill. The mapping of the high amplitude cemented
sandstones on seismic highlighted many features such as slope channels and depositional fairway axis
and directions, representing an extensive sandy depositional system of Early-Middle Oxfordian age in
the area, shedding from the SE into the basin towards the NW. The extension of the system further
NW was predicted and then proven by the exploration wells. Further appraisal and development
efforts thus concentrate on finding better reservoir quality, less cemented parts that would be invisible
on seismic due to lack of AI contrast with encasing shales.

Similarly to Wood et al 1999, it was clear that AI and seismic reflectivity would not help discriminate
porous sandstone from the shales in this area, hence it was decided to carry out prestack inversion for
Vp/Vs and AI as an attempt to identify possible sweet spots within the Oxfordian sandstones. The
prestack seismic was first conditioned in Prestack-Pro software through a workflow including
demultiple, random noise attenuation and trim static processes before going to inversion using a low
frequency model derived from the existing exploration wells in the region. The inverted attributes
were then crossplotted to select the sandy portion. The discrimination worked better than expected
defining a laterally extensive sandstone layer with a good match to the well penetrating the Oxfordian
interval. This lithofacies selection from AI versus VP/Vs crossplot was then used to map a sandstone
layer corresponding to the Early-Middle Oxfordian interval, which became primary target for several
exploration wells. The Upper Jurassic sands were encountered as predicted in all the wells, although
of rather poor reservoir quality. The Orion discovery proved to be the most interesting in term of
volumes and further geophysical work was performed to better define reservoir thickness and quality.

Figure 2 AI versus Vp/VS crossplot of the Upper Jurassic strata in two of the Vega wells
(35/8-2 and 35/Q-14-H).

Use of inversion for reservoir quantification and characterisation of the Orion discovery

The Orion discovery is located on a tilted, down-faulted block to the north from the Vega South Field.
The trap is defined on 3 sides by the bounding fault towards the West, South and East and by dip on

80th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2018

11-14 June 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark
the northern side. The vertical discovery well 35/11-20S drilled the Oxfordian rather far down dip due
to a combined target in the underlying Brent Formation, and found 63m of clean Early-Middle
Oxfordian sandstones with 17,5% average porosity and 8m of light oil at the top. A first appraisal
side-track was drilled up-dip and found 27m of more heterogeneous reservoir with 18.8% average
porosity, but due to operational issues during the MDT operation, the well was lost. A second side-
track was drilled to reach another up-dip location and found 36m of sandstone interbedded with
siltstone and 16.3% average porosity.

The apparent variation of reservoir thickness found in the wells was not expected from seismic
interpretation and it was decided to revise the prestack inversion using the discovery wells as new
constrains. Inverted Vp/Vs and AI attributes were used again to define new lithofacies in the crossplot
domain, leading to a better understanding of the reservoir distribution and thickness surrounding the
discovery as shown in Figure 3. The sand facies volume was used to update the top and base
Oxfordian reservoir interpretation and to calculate a new gross rock volume. To further define the in-
place and recoverable hydrocarbon, a good understanding of the porosity distribution was necessary.
A clear linear relation between AI and porosity was seen in the well logs (R²=-0.79). Hence, the
median of the inverted AI was extracted for the reservoir zone between top and base of the Oxfordian
sandstone interval. The resulting surface was used as a trend attribute to guide the porosity
distribution in the Orion static reservoir model. The co-kriging strength was set to -0.79 accordingly
to weight the average AI input sufficiently high (Figure 4). In summary, reservoir quality within the
Orion Oxfordian reservoir is a function of the primary depositional setting (slope channel axis vs
overbank), compaction and highly variable diagenesis as well as sandstone thickness.

Figure 3 Section of the lithofacies cube from AI & Vp/Vs crossplot selection showing sandy
facies in brown, shaly facies in orange and undefined facies in white. The Orion discovery
well (20S) including the GR log is shown to the right hand side and the 2 appraisal wells
(20A, 20B) are shown on the left hand side. Thinning of the Oxfordian sandstone reservoir
updip is apparent.

80th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2018

11-14 June 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark
 Figure 4 a) Facies geomodel of the Orion fault block at reservoir level. b) Median AI trend
map of the reservoir used as co-kriging trend. c) Stochastically generated porosity
realization of the same layer. Facies distribution as well as AI both guide the porosity
distribution within the Orion reservoir.

Conclusions

A new play concept was established for Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) deep marine turbidite sandstones,
leading to a series of successful exploration wells in the Northern North Sea of the NCS. In this rather
difficult seismic imaging context (at 3500m depth, just below BCU) and complex structural setting,
seismic inversion was successfully used as sandstone facies discriminator for this play type. A refined
approach using the new exploration wells as constraint allowed to characterise reservoir quantity and
quality for development evaluation purposes.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Kevin Meisel for its contribution in the exploration phase of the upper
Jurassic and Christian Hanitzsch for its input in the porosity modelling as well as license partners
DNO Norge and Petoro.

References

Koch J., Frischbutter A., Øygard K.and Cater J.,[2017] The 35/9-7 Skarfjell discovery: a genuine
stratigraphic trap, NE North Sea, Norway, Geological Society, London, Petroleum Geology
Conference series, 8.

Wood M., Bingham G, and Mitchell p.,[1999] Predicting sandbody distribution and porosity for
Callovian to late Oxfordian succession; Block 9/13 UKCS: an integrated approach
Geological Society, London, Petroleum Geology Conference series, 5, 1281-1287.

80th EAGE Conference & Exhibition 2018

11-14 June 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark

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